Free Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky Page B

what’s not on it. When urgent matters come up, the “important” stuff you are working on that didn’t make your list should be dropped. You may be surprised to see how much energy you spend on off-list items!
    Make a daily “focus area. ” About ten months after launching our online productivity application, Action Method Online, a user suggested to me that our team create a special “focus area” within the application to which you could drag up to five Action Steps—from any project—that you wanted to focus on today. This arrangement suggested that, regardless of whatever else cropped up that day, the focus area had to be cleared before you went to sleep at night. Keeping your focus list short makes it easier to constantly review throughout the day—to ensure that you focus on the more important items.
    Don’t dwell. When urgent matters arise, they tend to evoke anxiety. We dwel on the potential negative outcomes of al the chal enges before us—even after action is taken.
    Worrying wastes time and distracts us from returning to the important stuff. When it comes to addressing urgent items, break them down into Action Steps and chal enge yourself to real ocate your energy as soon as the Action Steps are completed.
    It is also helpful to consider whether or not certain concerns are within or beyond our influence. Often our worries are for the unknown and there is nothing more we can do to influence the outcome. Once you have taken action to resolve a problem, recognize that the outcome is no longer under your influence.
    Don’t hoard urgent items. Even when you delegate operational responsibilities to someone else, you may stil find yourself hoarding urgent items as they arise. When you care so deeply about a project, you’l want to resolve things yourself. Say an e-mail arrives from a client with a routine problem. Even though the responsibility may lie with someone else on your team, you might think, “Oh, this is real y a quick fix; I’l just take care of it.” And gradual y your energy wil start to shift away from long-term pursuits.
    Hoarding urgent items is one of the most damaging tendencies I’ve noticed in creative professionals who have encountered early success. When you are in the position to do so, chal enge yourself to delegate urgent items.

    Create a Responsibility Grid. If you have a partner, you’l want to divide and conquer various tasks for efficiency. Some teams create a “Responsibility Grid” to help them compartmentalize. This is also a tool that I used with co-heads of teams while working at Goldman Sachs. Across the top of the chart (the horizontal x-axis) you write the names of the people on the team. Then, down the left side of the page (the vertical y-axis), you write al of the common issues that come up in a typical week. Place a check in the grid for which team member (listed along the top) is responsible for which type of issue (along the side).
    For example, if you’re a smal application-development team, your list of issues might include “inquiry for a sale or team discount,” “bug report from a user,” “report of lost data,” and “suggestion for a new feature.” As a team, you go through each person’s column and check the issues he or she is responsible for. Once completed and agreed upon, this chart sends an important message about who is (and, more important, who is not) al owed to respond to certain issues. The exercise in itself wil help quench everyone’s impulse to do everything themselves and wil streamline your team’s operations.
    Use a Responsibility Grid to decide who does or does not need to get involved

with whatever comes up.
    Create windows of nonstimulation. To achieve long-term goals in the age of always-on technology and free-flowing communication, create windows of time dedicated to uninterrupted project focus. Merlin Mann, founder of the productivity Web site 43folders.com, has cal ed for the need to “make time to make.” It is